weekend update

Weekend update... for Friday class we went on a jungle trek up Doi Sutep, the major mountain overlooking Chiang Mai. On this mountain resides the second most important temple in Thai Buddhism. Our trek involved waterfalls, buddhist monasteries hidden in the clouds, and of course, leeches. I was clean, although some of my classmates were not so lucky... or maybe they just don't contain the genetic mutation of leech resistant pheremones like myself. Either way, the temple on top is gorgeous... very ornate with the classic gold and red... when it is not fogged in there is a vista view of all of Chiang Mai valley. Legend has it a monk released an elephant on the mountain and its final resting point decided the placement of the temple.

Saturday my tentative plans to stay near home and relax were vetoed by the grandmas (the two sisters of my Kuhn-yai) and so we went out to lunch and visited some hot springs in the hills. Sunday consisted of monkeys riding tricycles and snakes being smooched and whatnot. Pretty standard.

The final week of the homestay and foundations class is upon us. Saturday we will move into dorms and Monday begin Agroecology, which starts here in Chiang Mai for a week and then brings us into the mountains to live in two different villages for three weeks. Should definitely be a change of pace. It will be hard to leave here... already some teary-eyed farewell discussions have taken place with Memee. Alas, every kid has to grow up.

Last week in class we talked a lot about the progression of human scientific thought... from the parts to the whole. From Aristotle's forms and Descartes breaking down of the whole into parts came Newton's physical laws. This was progressed by the Romantics with a more aesthetic view of the whole which turned towards 19th century vitalism, theorizing that the whole is greater in some way than the sum of its parts. This leads to systems thinking and organismic biology of the 20th century... which brings us to the deep ecology of today. The idea that ecology, rather than physics, that a deep sense of our placement within the biotic community, could be the new universal scientific field. This is the notion that land and flora and fauna and ecosystems have value in their own right besides their benefits and relation to humans. This was prophesied largely in Aldo Leopold's 1949 Sand County Almanac. His land ethic called for our relation to the land to change in these kinds of ways. He hoped for just as our prohibition of slavery outlawed the purely economic view of social relationships, the land ethic would similarly let us surpass our purely economic notions of land management and use.

The next few days, inspired by Chiang Mai citizens who are protesting Bangkok's central plan for the expansion of roadways in Chiang Mai, we are working on some sustainability indicator research projects around the city. My group will go out tomorrow and begin work on assesing and indexing the 'walkability' of Chiang Mai through a complex system of algorithms... actually more like a tape measure and a GPS unit and some frogger type traffic dodging ability.

From the end of my street as the sun set tonight an orange aura, pocketed between the curved lines of Doi Sutep and an amorphous cloud blob jutting above it, tinged the still water that bathes the rice stalks beside the road. Goodnight all.

scroll with me

A common feeling of mine is the desire for those people that I care about to see what I am seeing. I feel helpless trying to explain or even remotely verbalize the feelings and sights that surround me each day. So I invite you to scroll with me on a vertically formatted trip through some of the past few weeks.

Mok Fah waterfall. On the diirt road below you a subway system of tiny red ants creates a halfpipe crossing the road/desert. In another place on the path the team has abducted a helpless worm, and carry his wriggling body away both gracefully and efficiently, up and over sand cliffs, and into the brush, slowed by no obstacle. Your distractions have masked the light mist overtaking your constant sweaty state. You look up to realize that ahead, past the badly translated english subtitles of the precariously placed thai signs is a most massive waterfall plunging out of the dense tropical bush into a sandy pool. Of course you swim, and as you get closer to the falling wall of water you realize that the name waterfall is only partly fitting, for much of the water in the hurricane dropzone area can be seen defying gravity and heading back up, away from the sweaty tourists. The Thais see the jungle as a place of numerous and sometimes dangerous spirits.

The commute into Chaing Mai. The yellow song tauw into the city is full, of course. So you hop on the back bumper runner thing and hold on to the roof rack, watching vehicles filled with hooded people or heavy objects precariously balanced on top pass by. It is misting this morning, but the distant sketches of mountains can be seen. The sociology of Thailand is very different than that of which I have culturally absorbed back home. In Thailand, the laws are... well... semi-important. No one will let you out into traffic as a common courtesy, and they may not stop if they hit you. This is a country of relationships. For those people who are strangers to you, you have no direct moral or social obligation. But those people wkho mae it into your 'circle of concern', they are taken care of... and you will take care of them... all according to a social ballet of hierarchical relationships based on age, gender, social standing, education, and wealth. I feel so advantaged to have been fused into the circle of concern of my host family and their friends, it will be hard returning to tourist status.

Talapia fish farm. You are in the murk up to your chest, and if your shoes didnt have straps on them they would be engulfed and annexed by the mud bottom. The net is rolled up to gather all the fish into one corner. There you reach in with your net and pull out 2, 3, sometimes 4 wriggling 8 to 14 inch talapia. Indigenous to the Nile River system, they are a great fish for harvesting due to their love of phytoplankton, their rapid growth (0 to 750 grams in 7 months), and their minimal bone structure. So you grab the front end with your gloved hand, pry open the mouth, prop the gill open with your thumb, and attempt to empty the female's mouth of eggs. These are collected and incubated into fry which will be sold to local farmers on a kind of micro loan system. These fish can jump though, and some frisky individuals jump the net, hit you in the chest, and swim off into the murk.

Twelve thousand two hundred and fifty monks recieving alms after some Buddhist chanting in the sub district of Doi Saket where I live.

Picture this: The side of road is dark, a swaying red blinking light can be seen ahead. Elephants need taillights too in the night.

life story

Birthed out of a cramped tube into a sterile brightly lit people-center only to be tagged and given documents legitimizing my existence, I was arbitrarily taken back to a home. With no handle on the language or customs, I must have sounded similar to an infant, waving my hands and making unintelligible sounds as my one year old brother Trunk likes to do. My eating habits were similarly ridiculous as I attempted to decipher the Thai fork backhoe, spoon dump-truck technique. After going to bed very early and waking up before the sun I was dressed and potty trained by my most sweet and loving parents. That first week I could barely stand on my own under the oppressive heat and humidity. Yes, a Thai homestay is nothing more than a rebirth of sorts, a compressed simulacrum of the stages of my last 20 years on earth.

I am happy to report that my Thai infancy is over, and now I sound like a 3 or 4 year old when I speak. I am considerably more acquainted with the foods, flawlessly opening no-longer-mysterious juicy fruit orbs by myself and eating rice at least three times a day. I am getting accustomed to the climate and the routine of the Thai day... I am even old enough to go to school on my own now. This commute consists of an hour long combo package of bike riding, taxi/truck riding, and public bus cruising throughout the greater Chiang Mai area.



















I can see what is going to happen though. With only three weeks left of my childhood here, I will soon be off to higher (elevation) education. Into the mountains I will go, away from my loving family, only to return to Chiang Mai one week out of every month. My worried Thai parents will call me and check up on me, for my mother is deathly afraid that I will forget about them and never come back during the next few months to visit. Another repeat of childhood in America... once I finally reach the peak of my abilities to express myself I will be whisked away to other adventures.
















I miss everyone at home, hope school and other endeavors are going well. Love kyle.... or just ky in Thailand.